From the towns of Salix and Sloan
westward to the Missouri River is a broad strip of fertile farmland, divided
with well-tilled fields intersected by graveled roads and spotted here and there
with neat farmhouses. It is all so quiet with the peace of agriculture that it
seems incredible that the region once was filled with the virgin forest and that
the silence once was broken by the sharp ring of the woodsmanís axe and the
whine of sawmills.

The first settlers in the region
found the Iowa bank of the Missouri River lined with thousands of acres of
cottonwood and elm trees, all of mammoth size and waiting be cut down. For many
years lumbering was an important and profitable industry, which offered
employment to hundreds of men and provided lumber, cordwood and by-products for
the settlers as far south as Onawa and as far north as Sioux City.

A pioneer in the business was John
Nairn, who came to the vicinity in 1869 from New Ulm, Minnesota, and started the
operation and sawmill in Lakeport Township, about four miles southwest of
Salix. The mill was a great boon to early settlers with such primitive
habitations as log houses and sod shanties.

Mr. Nairn was a native of Scotland
and had followed his vocation as carpenter and builder in Minnesota
for several years. Nairnís mill grew to be a place of considerable importance.
In addition to a large list of regular employees many transients were given
seasonal employment cutting down trees, scaling logs, cutting and hauling
cordwood, and doing other work pertinent to the wood and lumber business.

The lumber turned out at Nairnís
mill was of high quality and accurately cut. It always found a ready sale.
Thousands of feet of it were turned out every year, all cut from a fine quality
of cottonwood and elm.

Some of the lumber was hauled to
Sioux City, but most of it was used in the construction of residences and farm
building in the community. No doubt houses and other buildings still may be
found at Salix, Sloan, or Sergeant Bluff with framework of lumber form Nairnís
mill.

In addition to furnishing lumber
and building materials, the mill also furnished hundreds of cords of wood for
fuel each year. Much of this wood was sold to the Sioux City and Pacific
Railroad for locomotives and for heating buildings and coaches.

This wood was delivered to Salix or
Sloan during the winter months. It was stacked along the railroad right-of-way
in ricks eight feet high and 200 or 300 feet long.

Subsequent to the coming of Nairnís
mill, several other people came into the section with sawmills and helped
complete the destruction of the forest. Notable among Nairnís successors were
William and Benjamin Glover, Isaac Bridget, and the Forney brothers.

The Glover brothers were born in
Kentucky and moved to the vicinity of Salix after living for several years in
Missouri. The Glover Mill was established in 1882 about one mile west and three
miles south of Salix.

Some idea of the size of the mill
may be gathered from the fact that the boiler was 22 feet long and the flywheel
on the engine was seven feet in diameter. Logs up to 22 feet in length were
taken from the 80 acres of timber in which the mill was located. Nairn also
contributed timber to the Glover Mill and thousands of logs were brought down
the Missouri River in rafts to be fed into the whining saws.

Both the Glover brothers raised
large families. Benjamin Glover had seven children and William had nine. Many
descendants of the pioneer lumberman still are living in the vicinity of Salix
and Sloan. Benjamin died in 1921 and his brother in 1923, but the mill passed
out of existence during the first World War.

Mr. and Mrs. Nairn were parents of
six children, all of whom are dead. Mr. Nairn died at his home in Lakeport
Township April 11, 1894, and Mrs. Nairn died at Salix July 17, 1909, at the age
of 82 years.

Today even much of the land where
the mighty forest stood as disappeared. The Missouri River just flows over the
spot where John Nairn built the first sawmill and the Glover family has been
forced to retreat eastward three times as the river nibbled off more and more of
the land they cleared.

Trees still grow between the towns
and the river, but most of them are small and the plants are too widely
scattered to make lumbering worthwhile. All that remains of the once large
industry are the memories in the minds of a few who watched the rise and fall of
the lumber kinds.